On 1 April 2026, the duty on UK online casino profits rose from 21% to 40%. A second increase follows on 1 April 2027, when online sports betting moves from 15% to a new 25% rate. Remote bets on UK horse racing are excluded from that second rise. Rugby union and rugby league, which also draw part of their commercial income from gambling companies, have no such exemption. Together the two changes are the largest overhaul of gambling tax in Britain for more than a decade, and they reach rugby through sponsorship budgets as well as through the offers supporters see when they open a betting or casino account.
The casino side felt the change first. Welcome offers had already shrunk after the Gambling Commission capped bonus wagering at 10x in January 2026, which made free offers more expensive for operators to run. The current list of free spins no deposit uk offers shows the result: eight of the ten no-deposit offers listed this month are five spins. With the duty on casino profits almost doubled, there is little reason to expect those offers to grow again soon. Anyone claiming one should check the withdrawal cap and the expiry window before spinning, because those terms now decide what a small offer is worth.
Remote gaming duty is charged on the gross profits operators make from online games of chance, which covers slots, table games and online bingo. The government’s policy paper on the changes to gambling duties, published with the November 2025 Budget, set the new 40% rate from 1 April 2026. The same paper introduced the 25% remote betting rate from April 2027 and abolished the 10% duty on in-person bingo.
The Treasury chose to tax the two products differently. A single remote gambling tax had been proposed in the April 2025 consultation, but the government rejected it on the grounds that online casino games carry greater risk of harm than betting on sport. Casino profits therefore take the steeper rise, and sports betting the smaller one a year later. The Betting and Gaming Council, the industry’s trade body, has warned that customers are likely to see worse odds and smaller offers as operators pass on the cost.
The exemption for racing reflects how that sport is funded. Bookmakers already pay a 10% statutory levy on their profits from British racing, and racing bodies argued that a higher betting duty on top would damage prize money and media rights income. Remote bets on UK racing therefore stay at 15%, the same rate as bets placed in betting shops.
Rugby has no equivalent levy. The money it receives from gambling companies is commercial: title sponsorships, kit deals, matchday branding and official betting partnerships. The tax rise does not touch rugby’s revenue directly, but it reduces the marketing budgets that pay for those deals. One industry estimate put the combined effect on a single large operator at several hundred million dollars in lost earnings across 2026 and 2027, and sponsorship is among the easier costs to cut.
The timing is awkward for both codes. Rugby league’s top flight has carried a bookmaker’s name as title sponsor for a decade, and that deal reached its contracted end with the 2026 season without an extension being announced. In Wales, a URC club in its 150th season signed a collar sponsorship with an online bookmaker for 2026-27, an example of smaller, regional deals still being done.
Football’s change of direction adds to the pressure. Premier League clubs agreed to stop wearing gambling brands on the front of their shirts from 2026-27, and some of that marketing money is looking for a new home. Rugby is one obvious candidate, with a growing young audience and clubs that need income. Higher duty means there is less of that money to go round.
English club rugby enters this period with little margin. In the 2023-24 season, no Premiership club made a profit, according to an industry finance report. The league has kept its salary cap at £6.4 million for 2026-27, introduced a salary floor of £5.4 million to stop clubs underspending, and scrapped promotion and relegation in the hope of attracting long-term investment.
The gap with France is already visible on the pitch. After the opening round of this season’s Champions Cup, English clubs had one win, one draw and six defeats from eight matches. Talking Rugby Union’s analysis of that round pointed to French clubs’ larger budgets and commercial revenues as one of the structural reasons. Any reduction in sponsorship income from gambling would widen that gap rather than close it.
The second stage arrives in April 2027, when the 25% remote betting rate applies to online bets on rugby and every other sport except UK horse racing. Free bets and sports welcome offers face the same pressure that has already reduced casino offers. Supporters who use a combined sports and casino account will likely see smaller sign-up deals across both.
For clubs and leagues, the question is how much of their commercial income depends on a sector whose tax bill has risen sharply in two years. The answer differs from club to club. A league title sponsorship is far harder to replace than a collar logo, and rugby league is more exposed than union because more of its sponsorship comes from gambling companies.
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